Lettuce go then, you and I

It's been a salad kind of week for this MD stomach, which is a good thing. Yes, folks, it's time to ditch my winter love handles in anticipation of NYUSoM's impending spring break!

Because this is totally my idea of a good time. Yeah. Woo.

Which I will spend in dank Boston, curled up on Andy's futon, lackadaisically reviewing renal for the exam occurring the week after break, occasionally getting up to refresh my mug of hot drink.

This photo brought to you by my new favorite spot on the Internet,
Behind the Gallic Fumes, with its tasteful URL of frogsmoke.com

Diet-friendly though they may be, lettuce salads are boring*, so in addition to the lettuce-free panzanella and eggplant salads of yore, here's a green bean and pickled red onion salad with fried almonds, also thanks to Smitten Kitchen. Well, sort of. First of all, I roasted the green beans, because I didn't feel like blanching (much less blanching and shocking) anything. I ditched the sliced fennel because I didn't want to pay for it and toasted some fennel seeds with the almonds instead. Sacrilege? Maybe. Delicious? Absolutely.

A follow-up to my ER experience yesterday: I thought more about the patient I mentioned who said that she had considered lying so that she could get home to her kids. She had a history of anxiety issues, but "had that under control" with lifestyle changes and meds. She had symptoms that were indicative of heart trouble, and she was... well, I guess "posturing" is the word, although that sounds so negative... she was trying to be engage with the doctor at as high a level as possible and with as rational a mien as possible. But she broke down crying at one point, and I had to restrain myself from reaching out to grab her hand; I didn't know how the resident I was tailing would take it if I did. It's just that the patient seemed so lonely, and so scared. The doctor hadn't asked her name, and while she was respectful, she was also busy and distant. It's strange and troubling to me that while my first instinct was to comfort the patient, my next was to conclude that I'd have to suppress my empathetic impulses in order to be an effective doctor. I'd seem too mushy, too much of a bleeding heart; I'd waste time holding hands and patting shoulders when I should be doing my job. I'd like to say that I'm wrong on this one, that I can preserve a need to just make someone feel better no matter what the circumstance while also conducting my medical business efficiently. But honestly, I don't know, so I'll just say that I hope I'm wrong.

*I will note that everyone from Modern Family to quizbowl friends has been singing the praises of wedge salad. It's a wedge out of a head of iceberg lettuce with dressing on it. I'll try it one day, I guess, but it'll take a lot of mental activation energy to overcome the barrier resulting from the fact that this is basically an iceberg lettuce salad, except somebody was too lazy to actually tear up the lettuce and toss it with the dressing.